ISC Release on PRAWN Changes
November 30, 2009
Farmington, UT
ISC Release on PRAWN Changes
For immediate release
As most know, the continuing loss of ISC World Tournament caliber teams is putting the tournament in jeopardy. Because of this, the ISC has been forced to make some major changes in rules and tournament operation for 2010 and future years. This release is one of two that will be issued this week, explaining the changes. The second change is currently being voted on by the ISC Board of Directors.
To fully explain the background of these changes, one must understand the economics of the ISC World Tournament. The World Tournament is a primary source of operational revenue for the ISC. The host city conducts the tournament with a financial commitment to ISC. The host city must have reasonable assurance of sufficient economic impact and revenue to make their operation viable and profitable. To successfully accomplish this, there must be a sufficient number of teams traveling to the host city and the tournament must be appealing to fans who attend the tournament games.
Perhaps most important is that the overall experience must be attractive to the teams and players to spend the necessary money to travel to and stay in the host city, take time away from work and families and to compete in the best club tournament in the world.
Last Friday, Larry Fisher and Blair Setford traveled to Michigan to meet with the Midland Tournament Directors for 2010 and explain our proposed changes. The Midland host committee has approved the change being announced today and the subsequent one to be announced later in the week.
The first announcement is the following change in our PRAWN rule:
For 2010, each team will be limited to six PRAWN players. Only one of the six may be a PRAWN pitcher. There will be no exceptions (grandfathering) for those players who have made PRAWN status and remained with their original team.
The above rule change has been approved by both the ISC Executive Committee and the ISC Board of Directors by a majority vote.
The primary intent of this rule change is to make more PRAWN players and pitchers available to more teams.
A PRAWN is a player who has been named to the ISC All-World Teams in the 2007, 2008 or 2009 ISC World Tournaments. There is no change in our previously announced rule of limiting PRAWN status only to those making All-World in the prior three years.
We plan to issue the second release later this week.
Ken
November 30, 2009
